The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

The Tea:

The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek By: Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal

Blog Written By:  Ciestiel

If you don’t know, this was written by two men famous on YouTube. Rhett and Link of Good Mythical Morning. I love their show and was excited when they announced they were going to write a fiction story, my preferred books to read. And after reading the book I was more in love. It was well written, with a balance between showing and telling in the writing. The story was chilling, captivating, and there were plot twists I didn’t expect.

A little bit about the novel:

Three best friends, Rex, Leif, and Alicia, attempt to finish a film they want to enter into a festival and some shenanigans ensue causing Alicia to be sent away to a school for troubled kids. In their small town that school has a reputation where kids just don’t come back the same. So, Rex and Leif make it their mission to rescue their friend and uncover a whole lot of other mysteries and secrets as they do. 

This was a middle-grade to young adult novel and I enjoyed it more than I do most middle-grade books. It may be more YA but it reads more like middle-grade. I often find in middle-grade novels that the children protagonists are unbelievably smart and heroic. I know the books are made for kids but as an adult I have such a hard time with the believability that all these children are smarter than the adults. But in Lost Causes of Bleak Creek there is actually a balance with the children solving the problems and actually having help from adults.

Rex and Leif are likable main characters even though they aren’t perfect. And I liked that we also got a side story with the adult, Janine, and how it all tied into Rex and Leif’s main story.

So, the story. The story has you feeling like it’s just this small town with a secret cult causing problem kids to go missing but then as we go we get this slow build up of supernatural elements and the big reveal towards the end and it’s amazing. It’s like The Giver and Stranger Things merged to make a beautiful book. The main villain has depth and wasn’t just a one dimensional antagonist with one obvious motive like many middle-grade books. He had layers that we discover as the story progresses. The build-up to the story climax is done so well and there was more dark humor and adult humor than I was expecting. And the ending was suspenseful and left you with questions and hope for a sequel.

Overall I loved The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek. The story had good pacing, the writing draws you in, the build-up is phenomenal, and there’s so many unexpected twists and turns. I would recommend this book to anyone and genuinely want a sequel book. It was so good I finished it in a couple of hours, just saying.

7.5/10 Biscuits

And That’s The Tea

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Bonus Thoughts:

If this was made a bit more adult, and you remove the supernatural things at the end, it could be a wonderful criminal minds episode or adult crime novel.